jefferson, washington, and chuck norris

Our President & Congress desperately need a history lesson from Thomas Jefferson & George Washington...and Chuck Norris.

To contract new debts is not the way to pay old ones.
George Washington, letter to James Welch, Apr. 7, 1799

To preserve [the] independence [of the people,] we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debts as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our callings and our creeds, as the people of England are, our people, like them, must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give the earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses, and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live, as they now do, on oatmeal and potatoes, have no time to think, no means of calling the mismanagers to account, but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers.
Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 1816. ME 15:39

All of this courtesy of Chuck Norris, who has compiled a great many quotes from our founding fathers in this article: I may run for president of Texas. A good, quick read if you're up for it! Maybe Chuck Norris will join the ranks for Jefferson & Washington as a great President some day, hehe.

And props to Ryan for pointing these out to me and issuing a challenge to us all - write letters/emails to the President and your elected officials and ask them what they think of what our founding fathers said!

flames kindled

The flames kindled on the Fourth of July, 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary, they will consume these engines and all who work them.

Thomas Jefferson to John Adams
1821

I tremble for my country

And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever.

Thomas Jefferson
Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 18
1781

I love that - "I tremble for my country." Does anyone tremble for our country today, when we see how far we've strayed from our founding principles? And the second part "when I reflect that God is just." What are we doing with the gift of liberty? How do we appreciate it on a daily basis?

To whom much is given, much is expected!
Luke 12:48